Consumer Product Comprising Outer Packaging with a Visible Code and System Including the Product

This application is a 35 U.S.C. § 371 National Stage patent application of PCT/ES2023/070297, filed 10 May 2023, which claims the benefit of Spanish patent application U202230826, filed 17 May 2022, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

The present disclosure relates to a consumer product having a packaging which in turn has a visible code, which allows using the printing colours typical of the product at hand, without thereby affecting the capacity of a device having a camera and a processor to identify the code.

Visual markers (QR, Data Matrix, April Tags, Aruco, etc.) are usually monochromatic, i.e., they encode information using a foreground colour over a background, with said foreground colour having a high contrast with respect to said background. Techniques for detecting and decoding these markers are based on brightness, so the two most extreme colours within this characteristic are typically used, i.e., black for the foreground and white for the background.

Algorithms convert the original image () into a greyscale image () in the marker reading process. Colour information is thereby discarded, reducing the image to its brightness component. The brightness image is binarized () by means of a segmentation algorithm, whereby each pixel is labelled as either foreground or background.

The problem with using black over white in these codes is that they are not ideal in some cases despite being the two most widely used tones in printing. Sometimes, as a matter of branding, the manufacturer is unable to incorporate the code in its product because the black and white tones differ too much from its corporate colours. Other times there are physical limitations that prevent printing, such as the limitation to very specific inks (mass printing of products is usually performed with a very limited set of colour rollers, the expansion of which can greatly affect production price).

To that end, and as will be set forth below, the inventors propose a technique for colouring monochromatic markers which allows these drawbacks to be overcome without modifying the current techniques for reading these markers.

To overcome the drawbacks of the state of the art, a first aspect of the present disclosure proposes a consumer product comprising an outer packaging, the outer packaging having a visible code and having a first colour, a second colour and a third colour, wherein each colour occupies a surface of the outer packaging and wherein the surface occupied by the first colour, the second colour and the third colour is larger than the surface occupied by other colours, characterised in that the visible code consists of a matrix of square cells:

As explained above, the step prior to the detection of a monochromatic marker involves discarding the colour of the image (converting to greyscale) for subsequent result binarization by means of a segmentation algorithm. Generally, the different segmentation techniques use a (local or global) brightness threshold which determines whether each pixel is labelled as foreground or background. The marker is usually formed with black colour (foreground) and white colour (background) since they are the two colours in the visible spectrum having the highest brightness contrast.

The disclosure consists of using two tones, one for the foreground (which can also be referred to as false black) and another for the background (which can also be referred to as false white), that are different from black and white, but the difference in brightness of which is sufficient to perform detection.

This idea is based on the fact that the brightness of the image is discarded in the first reading step. Taking into account that one and the same brightness corresponds with many different shades, any of these shades can be used as long as the final brightness is similar. In the case of black and white, there are no other colours with the same brightness since they represent the maximum and the minimum brightness possible. However, detection is possible using tones the brightness contrast of which is below said maximum. Therefore, according to the disclosure, tones are selected so that the false white and the false black maintain a high enough brightness contrast, regardless of their colour.

In some embodiments, the code has a first outer frame and a second frame consecutive to the first outer frame, with the first outer frame being of the first colour and the second frame being of the second colour.

In some embodiments, the code has a first outer frame and a second frame consecutive to the first outer frame, with the first outer frame being of the third colour and the second frame being of the second colour, with the third colour being in the first range of brightness.

In some embodiments, the code has a first outer frame and a second frame consecutive to the first outer frame, with the first outer frame being of the second colour and the second frame being of the first colour.

In some embodiments, the code has a first outer frame and a second frame consecutive to the first outer frame, with the first outer frame being of the second colour and the second frame being of the third colour, with the third colour being in the first range of brightness.

In some embodiments, the packaging also has a fourth colour which is in the first range of brightness or in the second range of brightness, with a fourth group of cells being of the fourth colour.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to a system comprising a product according to any of the variants described above, and a device having a camera and a processor, the processor being configured to assign a first value to the colours corresponding to the first range of brightness and to assign a second different value to the colours corresponding to the second range of brightness, such that a binary code can be obtained from a code consisting of three or more colours.

The different aspects and embodiments of the disclosure defined above may be combined together, provided that they are mutually compatible.

Additional advantages and features of the disclosure will become apparent from the detailed description that follows and will be particularly indicated in the attached claims.

In the description of the possible preferred embodiments of the disclosure, numerous details must be provided to better understand the disclosure. Even so, it will be apparent to the person skilled in the art that the disclosure can be implemented without these specific details. On the other hand, well-known features have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily complicating the description.

As can be seen in the figures, the disclosure relates to a consumer productcomprising an outer packaging.

This product can be a packet of cereals, medicine, a bottle, a cosmetic product, sporting goods, or any product that can be packed with a packaging capable of supporting at least three colours.

The outer packagingis known to have a visible code Q and a first colour C, a second colour Cand a third colour C, wherein each colour occupies one surface of the outer packaging and wherein the surface occupied by the first colour C, the second colour Cand the third colour Cis larger than the surface occupied by other colours, i.e., the packaging is characterised by three main colours, which is the most common, although it may consist of more colours that should, however, be considered as minor colours in the general impression of the product.

With respect to the visible code, it is a code which contains information relating to the product.

According to a preferred embodiment illustrated in, the visible code Q consists of a matrix QM of square cells QS:

As illustrated in, according to another embodiment, the code Q has a first outer frame QMand a second frame QMconsecutive to the first outer frame QM, with the first outer frame QMbeing of the first colour Cand the second frame QMbeing of the second colour C.

As illustrated in, the code Q has a first outer frame QMand a second frame QMconsecutive to the first outer frame QM, with the first outer frame QMbeing of the third colour Cand the second frame QMbeing of the second colour C, with the third colour Cbeing in the first range of brightness.

As illustrated in, the code Q has a first outer frame QMand a second frame QMconsecutive to the first outer frame QM, with the first outer frame QMbeing of the second colour Cand the second frame QMbeing of the first colour C.

As illustrated in, the code Q has a first outer frame QMand a second frame QMconsecutive to the first outer frame QM, with the first outer frame QMbeing of the second colour Cand the second frame QMbeing of the third colour C, with the third colour Cbeing in the first range of brightness.

As illustrated in, the packaging also has a fourth colour Cwhich is in the first range of brightness or in the second range of brightness, with a fourth group of cells being of the fourth colour C.

The disclosure further relates to a system comprising a productaccording to any of the preceding claims, and a device having a camera and a processor, the processor being configured to assign a first value to the colours corresponding to the first range of brightness and to assign a second different value to the colours corresponding to the second range of brightness value, such that a binary code can be obtained from a code consisting of three or more colours C, C, C, C. This process is illustrated infor two different examples.

show several examples of the proposed colours. First (), a colour mapping is applied by replacing black with a dark colour (with very low brightness) and white with yellow and cyan (with very high brightness). Discarding the colour and switching to greyscale (second column) show the actual information with which the segmentation algorithm works which, in this case, is very similar to the use of pure black and white. Therefore, the result of the segmentation (third column) is the same as when the original black and white tones are used.

Therefore, according to the disclosure, it is not necessary to only replace one tone with another tone, rather several tones with a similar brightness can be used. Specifically, in, black is replaced with dark green and white with two light tones: yellow and magenta. In this case, when converting to grey tones (), it can be seen that there are several light tones, but when segmenting (), the algorithm groups the two light tones into one, since they are more similar to one another compared to the other much darker tone.

The same idea can be applied to false black and false white at the same time, using two colours for each, as long as the two colours of each group are similar to one another and different from the other group in terms of illumination.

show another example in which two dark colours (maroon and blue) have been used to represent false black and two light colours (cyan and white) to represent false white. As can be seen, the result of the segmentation () is the same as in the preceding cases.

Generally, the proposal allows using any number of colours to represent both false black and false white, as long as the colours of one and the same group have similar brightness but maintain a high contrast between the two groups.

In view of this description and figures, the person skilled in the art may understand that the disclosure has been described according to some preferred embodiments thereof, but that multiple variations may be introduced in said preferred embodiments, without leaving the object of the disclosure as claimed.

In this text, the term “comprise(s)” and its derivations (such as “comprising”, etc.) should not be understood in an exclusive sense. That is to say, these terms should not be interpreted as excluding the possibility that what is described and defined may include more elements, stages, etc.